Something they don’t want you to think about

Oh, they’ll report it. Every now and then, tucked away among “other news”. But not in any depth. The evasion is not conscious. Such a strange and disturbing story unsettles their deepest assumptions about humanity, about what is happening to the world. They would rather not think about it.

Even the report manages to shoehorn in plenty of doom… It isn’t exactly brimming with congratulation, the first picture caption might read the same if it was found in a report that child mortality had increased!

Not exactly germane to the topic, but I don’t appreciate the “cutesy” coy headline to this thread. I like to have some idea what the topic is, not have to click a link to find out. Please don’t do this again.

Though Mao T’se-tung et al. strove mightily, as do deviant AGW Catastrophists allied with communo-fascist Green Gang types today, not only has no major famine occurred anywhere on Earth since 1960s but food-producers (“farmers”) in developed countries are no longer even itemized on decennial censuses.

FTA
‘… the UN target of reducing child mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015 will not be met.’
The ‘goals’ will NEVER be met. The target is simply moved so that the wailing, gnashing of teeth, feelings of guilt, finger pointing and most importantly MONEY will continue.
It’s worked well and the global warming / climate change scammers are using it as well.

It’s a matter of taste, of course, but unlike Laird, i like the way Natalie has put it. For me, it was a pleasant surprise to click on the link and find good news: i expected something along the lines of Stafford Hospital, Rotherham, or something concerning Obama or Hillary, or maybe the new Mayor of London.

Following up on Rob Fisher: i hold that the canonical link for Good News is the Maddison Project.
Although, you have to look at the books of the Great Man himself, Angus Maddison, to find data about life expectancy.

Speaking of life expectancy, have a look at what Jared Diamond has to say about it. I think Diamond’s essay, like his most famous book, is a bizarre mixture of genius and madness. Both are evident already in the first paragraph:

recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered.

The genius is in challenging the conventional wisdom, and incidentally promoting a paleo diet; and i tend to agree with Diamond, and others, that until a few centuries ago, at most a millennium ago, life was better for barbarians (whether hunter-gatherers or herders) than for civilized people living off agriculture.
Having said that, obviously Diamond is oblivious to the fact that life expectancy today, even in the poorest countries, is higher than it was before the adoption of agriculture.

In context, who in the bathymetric global media ever mentions Nobelist Norman Borlaug,

Celebrity magicians Penn and Teller once “played a game” on their TV show, where each player took turns picking humanitarians, and the player whose selections saved the most lives won. Penn took Borlaug with his first pick, and then announced “I win – you can’t catch up.”

Laird & Snorri Godhi, I think you both realise this, but in case it wasn’t clear, the form of the post was meant to be a black joke with the fact that the link took you to good news, contrary to the impression given in the build-up, as the punch line.

I do find it odd that so many people who pride themselves on their humanitarianism seem to be made uncomfortable by the fact that life is getting better for most of humanity.

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